1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to telecommunications billing and more particularly, to a billing record system which permits a telephone administration to readily define the criteria for constructing and modifying the decision tables used to decide whether to generate a billing record for each particular call as well as the billing record data to be included therein and the location to which the record is output.
2. History of the Prior Art
It is a major objective of the telephone industry to continually improve existing telephone services and to introduce new services as improvements in technology allow. It is also highly desirable for a telephone service provider to be able to bill customers for the use of particular features and to provide a system for billing which allows a telephone administration to specify the particular services for which a customer will be billed.
Incorporated within modern stored program control (SPC) switching exchanges are facilities for gathering all of the data related to each telephone call and making a decision as to whether or not a billing record will be prepared based upon criteria associated with the recorded call data. If a billing record is to be rendered for the telephone service provided by the exchange during the call, the exchange includes facilities for generating that billing record in accordance with predetermined charging criteria and then assembling the set of data associated with that call in a selected format. The assembled billing record is then output to a predetermined location such as an automatic message accounting (AMA) block within the exchange.
Prior art software within the charging system of an SPC exchange is generally hard coded to incorporate a fixed preselected billing specification which determines whether or not a billing record will be rendered in accordance with a billing policy determining body such as Bellcore in the U.S. and the national telephone administration in other countries. In addition, the prior art hard coded charging system software incorporates a local switching system generic requirement (LSSGR) which specifies the particular criteria, such as number of calls, length of calls, special services invoked during calls, etc., based upon which a customer utilizing the exchange will be charged. In general, when a call is placed within the exchange, the charging system software collects all of the data associated with the call such as the A-number, B-number, time that the call was placed, time that the call was terminated, etc. and stores it in memory. Thereafter, at the completion of the call, these data are analyzed and a decision is made by the hard coded billing specifications as to whether or not a billing record will be prepared depending upon, for example, whether or not the call was answered. If a billing record is not to be prepared, the stored call related data is simply purged and the next call is processed. If a billing record is to be prepared, then the hard coded software processes the stored data related to the call in accordance with, for example, the LSSCR criteria, and produces a billing record. The system only utilizes the items of stored data which are called for by the coded charging criteria and disposes of the remainder of the data.
A principal problem associated with the prior art approach of using standardized hard coded billing criteria and charging software is that when new features are introduced into the exchange, they cannot be charged for without removing the old billing software and installing new software which incorporates code including criteria for charging for the new features. Writing and installing new billing software is expensive and time consuming and very often results in a long time lag between the time when the feature is introduced and when it can be charged for by the telephone administration.
In addition, in European exchanges where each national or regional telephone administration often has different criteria for both initiating a billing record as well as preparing the specific chargeable components of the billing record, hard coded billing software requires numerous versions each adapted to a particular market and a particular telephone administration associated with that market. This greatly increases the costs of providing such software and delays the time within which it can be provided to individual exchanges.
Certain billing systems, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,584 to Benyacar et al have attempted to allow modification of billing parameters by a sponsor of a value added communications service. However, such systems simply allow add on modification of specific billing parameters within individual value added service sponsor records. Such systems are highly limited in their applicability, for example to 900 calls, and do not include full flexibility in the modification of telecommunications billing systems.
It would be of great advantage to allow each local telephone administration to be able to modify both the billing decision criteria, as well as the billing record format to be used as the charging specification criteria on a real time basis. The system of the present invention provides such an advantage.